田舍夜舂
[明]高启
新妇舂粮[1]独睡迟，
夜寒茅屋雨来时。
灯前每嘱儿休哭，
明日行人要早炊。
注释：
[1]舂粮：捣米备粮。
Husking Rice
Gao Qi
The wife is husking rice till late into the night,
Alone in thatched cottage cold with wind and rain.
She tells her baby not to cry by candlelight,
For early risers need their meal to start again.
“Night Pounding in the Farmhouse” is a seven-character quatrain written by Gao Qi, a poet in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. The first line of the poem describes a young woman working late at night to make spring crops; the second line describes the living environment; the third line describes how the young woman needs to make spring crops while taking care of her child, and how she is worried that her son will get sick from crying and that he will disturb her husband’s sleep; the last line answers the first three lines. This poem uses plain language to bring to life the image of a hardworking, simple, and virtuous young woman in a farmhouse with just a few words.
